Games are doing a really good job for providing learning with a lot of choices.

2. It is what Amazon.com would do if they had your job.

Games customize your environments based on your profile or levels you are on a game.

It is just like the customization of Amazon.com in which you are provided with customized information about books and other products you are interested in based on your profile or your purchasing experiences.

3. There are no next buttons

There are 2 reasons that learners hate next buttons. The first reason is that it forces learners to be linear for thinking. It is like do this and this and this. Secondly, next buttons overuse context with too many materials for learners to read and do.

4. Cognitive psychologists dig it

The best instruction hovers at the boundary of a learner's competency (by Andy Disessa at Berkley graduate school of education).

<Zone of Proximal Development>

5. Sometimes it is good to fail

If you want to succeed, double your failure rate (by Thomas Watson, the founder of IBM).

6. Games immerse learners in context

For example, games do this. With this kind of games, learners know what to do and how to make it complete.

7. Get rid of learners once and for all

8. Games make data sexy

9. Nobody ever wanted to stay up until 2AM just to take your CBT one more time before going to bed.

Games are more fun and have surprises, collaboration, and most importantly mastery. If you master something, you would feel fun.

In other words, with games, 'Learning is the drug.' (by Raph Koster 'Theory of fun)

In short, there is no learning objective that can't be made into a great game.

But traditional online courses, there is no learning objective that can't be ruined by turning it into a 'nexter'.

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Many tasks, roles, and tools are required to design and develop robust,

effective e-learning.

By Mark Steiner

Today’s wide blend of technologies enables an extraordinary range of cognitive, affective, and social enhancements of learning capabilities. Advances in collaborative learning and experiential simulation enable a variety of guided and inquiry-based learning that cross the barriers of distance and time. Through a mixture of instructional media, learners and educators can experience synchronous and asynchronous interactions.

This article focuses primarily on asynchronous learning, specifically constructing self-paced e-learning courses, though these strategies could be applied to a variety of learning design and development situations. Designing and developing robust, effective e-learning is not easy. Many tasks, roles, and tools are required to complete the process successfully. Here are 10 of the fundamentals critical to success.

Educate the client on the fundamentals of e-learning. Regardless of a client’s level of e-learning awareness or sophistication, an educational process must occur. This is true whether it is an internal or external client. Even among experienced professionals within this industry, individuals undoubtedly have varying nomenclature regarding roles, processes, and tools. It is essential to educate your client on roles, processes, tools, options, costs, feasibility, and consequences to ensure all parties are operating on similar assumptions and guidelines. You and your client should approach the endeavor as a partnership. Assist your client in realizing what an integral part it is to the process. Build trust with your client by providing it with sensible, honest, pragmatic expertise. However, don’t be afraid to exert control and don’t be afraid to say no. Remember it’s your responsibility to set and control the client’s expectations.

Determine the actualtraining need or gap. If training is not the solution to the problem, you are guaranteed to fail. It is doubtful either you or your client desire such an outcome. To help ensure determination of the actual deficiency, perform a thorough analysis, working closely with your client. Begin your analysis with what your client thinks is wrong, then dig deeper, utilizing your previous experiences, education, and intuition. There are a variety of resources that can assist individuals and organizations in enhancing and strengthening their analysis process.

Define your process and communicate it, focusing on key review points in the cycle. The design and development of e-learning is often a complicated collision of ideas, tools, roles, people, technology, and desired outcomes. You and your client want predictable results. A well-defined, reliable process is the clearest way to get the desired results. What activities are to occur? When will they occur? Which ones must be completed before other activities can begin? It is important to make your client aware of its responsibilities: specifically inputs, review cycles, and corresponding impacts

Mark Steiner is president of learning solutions firm mark steiner, inc. Visitwww.marksteinerinc.com for more information.

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This is an article from Steve Wheeler, who is an educational technology professor

at University of Plymouth in UK. It deals with E-learning 3.0 with 4 categories.

I especially like 3D visualization and interaction, in which Augmented Reality in

education belongs to. Just have a look and grab some ideas.

I'm excited by the future. It's something I have always looked forward to! But what will e-learning look like in a few years time? When Stephen Downes laid down his manifesto fore-Learning 2.0in 2005, he tapped into the zeitgeist of emerging social technologies and theorised a number of possibilities. Four years on technology is moving ever more rapidly, and a reappraisal of learning within digital spaces is overdue.

In conversation earlier today on Twitter withSue WatersandDarcy Moore, we discussed what learning would look like in a Web 3.0 world, and how it might differ from current learning. This led me to revisit some thinking I have been doing recently about what for the sake of convenience I will call 'e-Learning 3.0'. I will try to encapsulate some of these thoughts here, attempt some (hopefully not too dangerous) predictions, and hopefully promote some discussion. I believe that e-Learning 3.0 will have at least four key drivers:

Distributed computing

Extended smart mobile technology

Collaborative intelligent filtering

3D visualisation and interaction

Firstly, in a Web 3.0 world we will not only tap into the semantic web with all it promises, but e-Learning 3.0 will transgress the boundaries of traditional institutions, and there will be an increase in self-organised learning. Why? Because we will gain easier access to the tools and services that enable us to personalise our learning, and these will be aggregated more easily too. Additionally, with new cloud computing and increased reliability of data storage and retrieval, the mashup is a viable replacement for the portal which will lead to less reliance on centralised provision. This in turn may hasten the death of the ailing institutional VLE.

Secondly, many commentators such asDerek Bairdbelieve that Learning 3.0 is all about mobile technologies. Mobiles will play a big part in the story of e-Learning 3.0. There will need to be ubiquitous access to tools, services and learning resources, including people - peer learning group, subject specialists and expert support. With smart phone devices and better connectivity through constantly improving line-of-sight (satellite and wireless) networking services, there is little to stop learners everywhere from accessing what they need on the move, from virtually anywhere on the planet. Digital divides of the future will not focus on 'have and have not' socio-economic divides, but will more likely be 'will and will not' psychological divides, and 'can and cannot' skills divides.

Thirdly, truly collaborative learning will be possible in all contexts. Through predictive filtering and massively multi-user participative features, e-Learning 3.0 will make collaborating across distance much easier. With the best will in the world, very little collaborative learning occurs through the use of wikis and blogs, whilst social networks generally connect people but often superficially, and can also isolate. In a recent post entitledIs Twitter the semantic web?, I speculated on Twitter's functionality and suggested that through its primitive filtering tools such as RT, DM, @ and #tagging, we are witnessing some of the early semantic features that enable users to work smarter and more collaboratively. Intelligent agents will take this a lot farther.

Finally, 3D visualisation will become more readily available. Quicker processing speeds and higher screen resolutions will provide opportunities for smoother avatar-driven 3D interaction. Multi-gesture devices which will operate in 3D space will also become more widely available, reminiscent of the opening scenes of the science fiction film Minority Report. Touch surface interfaces are already here (I have one on my laptop) and multi-touch versions too (my iPhone has one) which will ultimately signal the demise of the mouse and keyboard. See David Beers blog for more on these ideas. 3D multi-touch interfaces will make a whole range of tasks easier including file management, fine motor-skill interaction, exploration of virtual spaces and manipulation of virtual objects.